Fight Club
by Taisi
Summary: "Let me give you some advice," Leo said, still so quiet and cold, nothing like Raph had ever heard before, his blue eyes burning like fire. "Don't ever lay a hand on my brother again. I don't care who you are. I don't care how big you are. All I care about here is him." (IDW/2k12, "Problem Child" extra, oneshot.)


A/N: I get a lot of prompts/requests on tumblr for oneshots set in my "Problem Child" 'verse, and normally I post those oneshots in my drabble collection (whimsically titled "And the Cow Jumped Over the Moon" because I'm unoriginal). This particular prompt, though, I want to let stand alone. Rather than a switched POV, it's actually an extra, taking place before the events of "Problem Child".

The 17th drabble in my little collection, the chapter titled 'blindside', PC!Raphael and his coworker (Alopex) briefly discuss something dubbed as "The Frank Incident;" which involved mildly injured Raph, severely protective Leo, and a guy named Frank. And since I got several requests for a little elucidation on that, here we are. (:

* * *

Leo took one look at him and his face went _cold._ Donnie followed his gaze to Raph, where he stood at the front door, and his bright brown eyes did that painful worried thing Raph hated so much.

"I'll get the first aid," he said quietly, and took off down the hall. Leo went the opposite direction, headed straight for Raph instead. Raph stood his ground on principle, even though every inch of him wanted to back down. His eye was throbbing and swollen already, and even his jaw felt sore, which made clenching it in its current scowl mode _really_ uncomfortable.

"Back off, Leo," he muttered, when his big brother stopped in front of him.

They were at odds with each other more than they weren't, and Raph _knew_ it was mostly because of his own shitty attitude. Leo was perpetually overworked and exhausted, and some days so burned out that only Mikey was enough to get a smile out of him, and Raph _still_ pushed him when he thought he could get away with it.

"I didn't do anything this time, alright? Just some guy at the garage who—"

Leo's hand on his face had Raph's eyes darting up again. The cool rage in those calm blue eyes sent a shiver down his spine, and at the same time loosened up the knot in his chest. No way was Leo that mad at _him._ It had to be something else, Fearless would never look at any of his brothers like that. Which meant Raph was mostly off the hook.

"What guy?" Leo asked. Raph blinked. This wasn't shaping up into the lecture he'd come home expecting.

"His name's Frank. He was tryin' to tell some lady her alternator was shot, but I told her it was just a dead battery, and later on he popped me one." It was humiliating, truth be told, and Raph grit his teeth despite the pain it sent through his cheek. "He's an asshole. You can get a new battery for a hundred bucks, but alternators can run you anywhere from five hundred to a thousand."

Leo made a soft sound of acknowledgement, and let him go just as Donnie came back with the battered toolbox serving as their first aid kit under one arm.

"Take care of him, okay, Donnie? I've got an errand to run."

And something about the way he said that gave Raph the biggest of bad vibes. He caught Leo by the sleeve before he could take so much as a step away, and didn't manage to keep the suspicion out of his voice.

" _What_ errand?"

"Don't worry about it," Leo said curtly, and—holy _shit_ he was already halfway out the door. Raph took off after him, slamming their front door shut on Don's alarmed questions, and did his best to keep up. Leo only seemed to notice after the second flight of stairs. "I thought I told Don to take care of you."

"Like I give a shit what you said," Raph snapped back, a little too sharply. _Shit_. "I mean—Leo, what the hell's goin' on? Where are you goin'?"

He didn't get an answer. But Leo, at least, waited for him to get in the car and buckle up before peeling out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. They hopped the curb, and Raph grabbed the passenger side handle on pure adrenaline-fueled reflex.

" _Fucking_ — "

"Language."

"Don't 'language' me, Leo! Will you tell me what the hell you're doing? You're—"

 _Scaring me,_ he didn't say, biting down on the words before they could slip out. Leo was never angry like _this._ Every time they got into each other's faces, every time he did something just to piss him off, Leo yelled and scowled and lectured, but _never—_

They parked with an unforgiving jerk of the brakes, and Raph looked up at the familiar sign of the auto shop he had only left like twenty minutes ago.

Oh.

Oh, holy shit, _no._

" _Leo!"_ he hissed, all but falling out the door in his rush to stop his brother—and he was a few steps too far behind, because by the time he caught up Leo was pushing open the employee door with enough might that it slammed open, cracking against the wall, and drawing everyone's attention in a matter of seconds.

Raph stood just behind him, feeling about an inch tall under the weight of all their eyes. His black eye felt like a neon sign duct taped to his face, and he had to fight the urge to put up his hood.

"Leo, c'mon—"

"Which one of you is Frank?" Leo said right over him, in a way that really wasn't a question at all. And he knew a few of their faces, from picking Raph up or dropping him off, but he didn't know any of them well enough to pick them out of a crowd. The silence loomed, and Raph wanted to disappear—then an unfortunately familiar voice spoke up from somewhere near the break room.

"I am," Frank said, standing up from a wheezing folding chair in a slow, lumbering way that made him look somehow even bigger than he actually was. "Who's askin'?"

Raph clenched his fists to keep them from shaking. These were _big guys,_ guys that lifted engines and carried tires on their shoulders, and Raph was scrappy but he never picked a fight with guys like _these._ He and Leo were just _kids_ , kids with training cut short and no energy outside work and school or will to keep their skills where they should be at, what the hell was Leo _doing—_

"Leo," he tried again for what felt like the hundredth time. Unused to playing the voice of reason, but willing to give it a shot, anything to stop Leo short of meeting that _giant_. "Bro, forget it. Let's just go home."

But Leo was moving again, long, unchecked strides across the garage, and said, "Hello, Frank. I'm Raphael's brother. I need to talk to you."

Frank eyes passed over Leo, landing squarely on Raph, and at that point, he looked like he was two seconds away from rolling his eyes. It made Raph seethe somewhere under the mortification. What a piece of work, looking down on Leo without giving him the time of day, just because he was Raph's brother.

"Jesus, this ain't about the boy's shiner, is it?" Frank said. He sounded like he'd hit the bottles already, that asshole. Why did Ruth keep him around? "Look, kid, I'll give you some advice. In the _adults'_ world, you gotta earn your place. That means showing your betters some respect, and learning from the people who know more'n you. Otherwise, uppity little brats like _him_ get—"

But he didn't get very much farther than that, because in the space of three seconds, while he was still mid-word, Leo had him on the ground. The unforgiving concrete soaked up the thud that would have otherwise been resounding, though a few chairs and a table got knocked over and the coffee maker broke into about a million pieces, and Raph stopped short of them, heart in his throat.

"Holy shit," someone behind him said, and he just stood there, staring.

The office door slammed open and Ruth came barging out in all her tiny fearsome glory, and several of the guys had surged forward—to stop the fight or watch it, no one looked sure. Leo was nothing next to Frank, no one probably thought a fight would even be a thing, and yet there it was. And Leo had a tire iron in his hand he grabbed from god knew where, leveled back enough to be pretty fucking dangerous, and a knee planted on Frank's chest.

"Let me give _you_ some advice," he said, still so quiet and cold, nothing like Raph had ever heard before, blue eyes burning like fire. "Don't ever lay a hand on my brother again. I don't care who you are. I don't care how big you are. All I care about here is him."

Ruth, as it turned out, didn't know about Raph's black eye until she saw it for herself. And her face twisted into something ugly and angry, and she told Frank not to 'show your ugly mug around here ever again, if you know what's good for ya'. But Raph could barely hear anything over the sound of his own heart beating in his ears.

He had to pull Leo off Frank, easing the tire iron out of his grip. And he _stared_ at him, rubbing his fingers over the imprints the metal handle had made in his big brother's palm, and it took three guys to haul Frank back onto his feet. A few people reached out and patted Raph on the shoulder or ruffled his hair, all of them seemed pretty rueful that he'd been hurt—they didn't know, he didn't let them know—he never expected friendliness like this, or kindness from them, not out of what was just a part-time job.

Ruth made him swear up and down to _talk to her_ next time he had any trouble, because they were family, and that meant taking care of their own and weeding out the bad eggs. She patted Leo on the cheek, and extended the offer to him—and let him know the coffee pot would be coming out of Frank's paycheck, not Raph's. It was her way of telling him 'good job.'

And the ride back home was silent, Raph wide-eyed and stunned almost the whole way. For someone like Leo, who did his best to avoid trouble and attention and work hard and live under the radar to protect his precious little family, _that_ was—

"Sorry," Leo said abruptly, once they were home, sitting in the dim interior of the car cabin together. "I know you didn't want me to. I know I nag you all the time about fighting."

"I don't give a shit about any of that," Raph blurted. He hadn't even _thought_ of that. "I just—didn't think you'd—I mean, you always try to stay out of trouble, I thought you wouldn't want me to tell you, or make a big deal—"

"It _is_ a big deal," he said, looking way older than just a year older than Raph, and fierce, and Fearless. "Of course I want you to tell me. I'm here for you, Raph, you and Don and Mikey. That's all. _You're_ all. You're the reason I'm doing _any_ of this. But what's the point of keeping you safe if I can't keep you _safe?"_

Raph reached over to grip Leo's hand, doing his best to meet those explosive blue eyes. And he would understand what Leo meant years later, in a cramped little hospital room, staring their father's brother down with Donnie in one arm and Mikey in the other—

But for now, he simply nodded at Leo; trusting in him without understanding at all.


End file.
